Big Sur is hard on the eyes.

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Level 1

13 points

Big Sur is hard on the eyes.

I think Big Sur dropped the ball for people who have less than perfect eyesight. There are a lot of details like the window control buttons in the upper left corner that are much smaller than what Catalina used. The menu fonts are also harder to read. I am regretting the upgrade.

Does anyone know if Apple has plans to make big Sur more accessible? I should at least be able to change menu font size. I can't find a setting for that. I can change the display setting to a higher zoom but I lose screen space if I do that.

I get the feeling that Apple is using recent college grads with less experience to design their interfaces and software. The lesson of allowing users to control font sizes in the interface was learned two decades ago. Please tell me I just haven't found the setting yet in Big Sur. I have also noticed the ui is slower in Big Sur. Why does it feel like we have taken a step backwards?

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Nov 16, 2020 10:54 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dialabrain

Level 10

125,399 points

Nov 16, 2020 11:08 AM in response to DonTheDude

FWIW. some of what you are seeing is an optical illusion. For example the control buttons are identical in size. Here is a screen shot of Catalina buttons shown in Big Sur Preview…

You can adjust the menu bar size slightly in System Preferences > Accessibility > Display which also adjusts the Fonts a bit.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

210,615 points

Nov 16, 2020 11:17 AM in response to DonTheDude

With Dark Mode enabled turn on Reduce Transparency and Increase Contrast in the System/Accessibility/Disply preference pane and you'll get this:

That helps the visibility for me. I also use the Safari extension Dark Reader to give me white text on a black background for more readability. It's easily turned off as Dark Mode is.